It’s been two weeks now since my truck has gone in the shop and I’ve been carless. I have used my bicycle for the majority of my transportation needs the last few years, so it’s nothing new to me to get around on two wheels. The real difference now is that I HAVE to either walk or use my bicycle to get to where I want to go and to run errands like grocery shopping. I may not be able to get up to speed like I would in my truck, but I get where I need to go.

Really, it’s less stressful than driving a car, especially when I get to use cycling/pedestrian paths that are totally separated from motorized traffic. Well most of the time. I recently had an encounter with a couple of women walkers who were right in the middle of the path instead of the side of the path they were supposed to be on, which is clearly marked. When I signaled to them that I was coming up behind them and then passed them, one of them yelled at me like she controlled and ruled supremely over the path and told me I was in the wrong.

I kept going, it made me angry, I’ll admit. I really started thinking about the encounter and how great the rest of the ride had been except for this one encounter. This one moment was beginning to ruin all the good ones that came before that. I made myself calm down and start to shrug off what happened because one bad thing should not spoil 100 good ones. It made me contemplate, what is it about the culture we live in that will make us cling to one dramatic bad thing but not allow us to embrace the multitude of good things around us? I am still working on a definitive answer to that, but remember next time when something similar happens to you, you don’t have to focus on that one bad thing. Pick your head up and look around you at all the great things that surround us everyday, pick one of them, no matter how great or small, and focus on that instead. Remember it is you who must make that positive change in your life, not someone else.

Until next time my valued readers, no matter what comes your way, don’t let anybody hold you down, especially yourself.